MARTINSVILLE, Va.—Brad Keselowski didn’t want anyone telling him what to do when his team had a big decision to make with 24 laps remaining Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

He wanted to make the call. As a potential Sprint Cup championship hung in the balance, he wanted to be responsible for the outcome.

Running sixth, he saw the five drivers ahead of him pit and decided to stay out on old tires. The decision ended up gaining him only one spot and one point—he led a lap but still finished sixth in the Tums Fast Relief 500.

Right or wrong, Keselowski is responsible for losing the points lead to race-winner Jimmie Johnson, who went from seven points behind Keselowski to two ahead of him with three races remaining in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

“I want the shot—when it comes down to the end of the game, I want the shot,” Keselowski said. “As in basketball, same thing in racing. I want the shot. I took it.

“I wouldn’t say we made it, but we didn’t miss it either. We broke even.”

Crew chief Paul Wolfe was fine with that, especially because Wolfe couldn’t see who was entering pit road at the time. Only two drivers—Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr.—stayed out while the rest of the field pitted.

“Brad studies the sport, he understands what’s going on and there’s only a few guys in the garage that do that,” Wolfe said. “If you didn’t have a guy that understood what was going on in his racecar, those calls could be a lot more risky.

“Was it the right call today? I don’t know. … It was kind of a wash. We got an opportunity to lead a lap by that call so that gained us a point. I’m not disappointed in it. What we showed is we didn’t give up all weekend.”

Both Keselowski and Wolfe knew their chances were slim with Johnson restarting third. Johnson had the better car all day as he sat on the pole and led a race-high 178 laps.

Keselowski had started 32nd and gradually worked his way into the top 10 after using a two-tire stop early in the race to get into the top 20.

“Top-six or (top)-sevens are break-even weekends, almost like a draw,” Keselowski said. “You can look at Jimmie winning and say, ‘How is that a draw?’ He’s our competition. We’ve got to beat him, we know that, but at some point you’ve got to do your own thing and rely on what gets you to where you’re at.

“What’s got us to where we’re at is just solid finishes when you don’t have a shot to win the race. We didn’t have a shot to win today and we got a solid finish. So I feel confident about that.”

The Penske Racing driver said he had a car that should have finished 10th or 11th.

“As bad as our car was in practice and in qualifying, I feel like we were able to minimize the damage, for sure,” Wolfe said. “I didn’t really know what we were going to have going into today. We made some more changes this morning.

“For starting 32nd, to finish sixth was a solid day for us.”

Having led the points for five of the previous six weeks, Keselowski heads into the final three races with a shot at the title but now must play the role of trying to catch the leader.

“You can’t count this team out,” Keselowski said. “This team has a tremendous amount of heart.

“I’m proud of them. This championship is going to come down to Homestead. … We’ll keep fighting the good fight.”